Page 297 - Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

Social life cycle assessment of biofuel production 263

2.2 Cases of SLCA of biofuel
After a literature review of recent and relevant publications on the SLCA and
biofuels themes, 9 articles were selected where their descriptive syntheses are
as follows (Table 9.1):
– Contreras-Lisperguer et al. (2018): This paper builds on the findings of a
case study on electricity generation through cogeneration in Jamaica in
which it analyzes two scenarios: baseline assessing the impact of cogene-
ration technology already installed in a Jamaican and the second considers
that the cogeneration technology is changed to a new biomass-based gen-
eration plant that updates the cogeneration stage in order to produce
energy from the bagasse. The evaluation was carried out using a complete
LCA, LCC, and SLCA. The results showed that the generation of elec-
tricity from bagasse-derived cogeneration is an adequate alternative
aggregating economic, environmental, and social value.
– Ekener et al. (2018a): A systematic approach to capture positive social
impacts of the methodology proposed in the SLCA guidelines has been
developed and tested for vehicular fuels (fossil fuels and biofuels). The
study addresses the positive social impacts in SLCA and answers the ques-
tions about the SLCA methodology, how it can be improved to system-
atically identify all possible positive impacts on the supply chain, and how
positive and negative impacts can be considered. They conclude there are
positive social impacts for fossil fuels and renewable for many social
aspects in the literature, which can change the overall picture of the social
impacts of vehicle fuels. In this way the authors propose a refinement of
the SLCA methodology to better capture and add the positive impacts.
– Ekener et al. (2018b): Examine the potential to assess integrated product
sustainability performance using the LCSA, including a broad range of
social impacts, applying it to selected chains of transportation fuel supply.
The methodology developed is tested on biomass-based fuels and fossil
transport—ethanol produced from Brazilian sugarcane and US corn,
and oil produced from Russian and Nigerian crude oil, where it outlines
differences in sustainability performance between products evaluated.
The main contribution is the measure taken to integrate the different per-
spectives of sustainability into a holistic result for sustainability, consider-
ing different stakeholder profiles (egalitarian, hierarchical, and
individualistic) and negative and positive social impacts. It has been found
that the order of classification of transport fuel chains included can change
when three different “world views,” representing different stakeholder
profiles and different priorities between sustainability perspectives, are